Archaeology Seminar Series Talks: The Maya Inclusive Worldview and Our Future
During the Fall of 2021, Boston University’s Archaeology Program will be hosting a series of lectures. Our first lecture is titled The Maya Inclusive Worldview and Our Future and will take place Wednesday, October 6th from 12:20 pm–1:15 pm. We are thrilled to have archaeologist and scholar Dr. Lisa J. Lucero (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) joining us to share her work on this topic and to engage in a conversation with the BU Archaeology community. The recording of the talk and the lecture details are below.
Abstract: Everything in Maya life, from kingship to agriculture, was rainfall dependent, and the Maya adapted quite well. Kings, as water managers, sponsored the construction of massive and sophisticated reservoirs that increasingly became interlinked with urban planning. They applied their traditional ecological knowledge to keep reservoir water supplies clean throughout the five-to-six-month dry season, sustaining tens of thousands of farmers. When a series of prolonged droughts struck the Maya area between c. 800 and 900 CE, kings eventually lost the support of their subjects when reservoirs dried up and crops died. An urban diaspora from the interior of the southern Maya lowlands ensued. While each of the hundreds of Maya centers had its own king, suite of resources, circumstances and histories, the reasons for the diaspora were dire enough to be permanent—the Maya never lived in these centers again. The majority of Maya, however, persevered, and they achieved this guided by their inclusive worldview. I detail this non-anthropocentric worldview and how it allowed them to live sustainably as farmers for 4,000 years without destroying their environment. The Maya worked with nature, not against it, and consequently promoted biodiversity and conservation, as we see at Cara Blanca, Belize. This embedded system worked for the Maya for millennia and supported more people in the pre-Columbian era than presently. We need to implement insights from the Maya in our planning for a more sustainable world.
Dr. Lisa Lucero (PhD, UCLA, 1994) is an AAAS Fellow, a Professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the former President of the Archaeology division of the American Anthropological Association. Her interests focus on the emergence and demise of political power, ritual, water management, the impact of climate change on society, and the Classic Maya. She has been conducting archaeology projects in Belize for 30 years; recently, she has been excavating ceremonial architecture near cenotes that served as part of a pilgrimage landscape. Dr. Lucero uses insights from the Maya on tropical sustainability issues, working with UNESCO Mexico and colleagues in Southeast Asia.